


getting better all the time

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [39]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Angst and Feels, Episode: s01e38 The Test, Gen, Post-Episode: s06e19 I Am My Monster, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23791276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Steven confronts the Gems about a test they gave him years ago.
Relationships: Amethyst & Garnet & Pearl & Steven Universe, Amethyst & Steven Universe
Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523993
Comments: 21
Kudos: 210





	getting better all the time

Things were… getting better. At least, Amethyst was pretty sure they were.

(They certainly couldn’t get any worse than Steven hunched and glowing on the floor, gasping those terrible things, crumpling, vanishing, swallowed up in a monster so massive he dwarfed the Diamonds —) 

But that was _over_. They’d finally gotten through to him, finally gotten him to realize how much they all loved him. It had been a whole month. He was talking to a human therapist and spending time with the three of them again, and she could see glimmers of the old him coming back. That had to be better, right?

There were times she wasn’t exactly sure, though. Maybe it was normal when humans were stressed, those days where he snapped at them over every little thing and glowed pink and cried, or days when he slept so long Amethyst would have been jealous if it didn’t scare her a little bit. None of the days ended in Steven the monster ( _he’d looked so scared, somehow, even through the fangs and the roaring voice_ ), so she told herself to stop worrying.

Then again, that’s what she’d told herself before this all happened. _I knew. I knew something was wrong._

Like, this, just now, she wasn’t sure about. Steven had come down from his room at a normal time, sleeping in until mid-morning but not until three in the afternoon. He’d had a few jokes for them. He’d made breakfast with her, laughing when she did the old egg-in-the-eyes trick for him. He’d settled in on the couch with a cup of tea instead of bitter black coffee. He had even said yes when Pearl suggested they watch a movie together. He’d picked something silly, _Crossroads Jones and the Lost Diadem_ , a goofy old movie about an archaeologist hunting treasure. Amethyst hadn’t seen it in years. Progress! It was good, right?

So why, an hour into the movie, was Steven sitting there with his hands tightening around his mug until it cracked?

Garnet was the first to notice, of course. Amethyst watched with concern as Garnet gently removed the mug from his hands, getting up and putting it carefully in the sink. “Steven, we don’t have to watch this movie if you don’t want to.”

“Of course I want to,” he said, but his voice sounded weird, and just as he spoke the picture shorted out. He jumped to his feet and turned the TV off, looking embarrassed. 

Amethyst gave Pearl a worried look, then turned back to Steven. “You okay there, bud?” she asked.

“Yes, of c --” he started to say. Then an irritated look crossed his face as if he was remembering something. “No,” he said instead.

“Thank you for telling us. Would you like to talk about it?” Pearl asked carefully. Amethyst could tell she was thinking of the house meetings they’d been having, where they’d started trying to hammer out what they could change in their own behavior to help Steven. 

One of the rules Steven had given them was _Just don’t... corner me. I’ll try to talk more, but I need you guys to give me space sometimes too._ Amethyst relaxed as Pearl tried to look casual instead of panicky. 

_Good job, P._

Steven exhaled heavily. They all stared at him, then realized they were staring at him, then all looked at each other instead. Garnet removed her visor, letting it vanish in a twinkle. 

“So… ugh, this is hard,” said Steven. He closed his eyes for a moment. “One of the things I’ve been, um, talking about in therapy… Dr. B’s been trying to encourage me to talk about things when they bother me, instead of pretending I’m fine.”

“We want to listen, Steven,” said Garnet, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, but… sometimes my problem is with you guys?” he said in a rush, not meeting their eyes. Amethyst watched him carefully, trying to figure out how a movie about a nerd hunting treasure had bothered him, and what it had to do with them.

“Dude, that’s okay. Sometimes we mess up. Sometimes we _really_ mess up, and if we did, we want to fix it,” said Amethyst. “What did we do this time?”

Steven flinched. “You didn’t do anything today,” he said. “It’s just, the movie -- did that last scene remind you of anything?”

Pearl considered. “Well, the humans were in danger,” she said slowly. “Did that bother you? Like when we would go on missions and they would get too dangerous?” She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder what we were thinking, taking you to some of those places —“

“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” said Steven. “Not exactly. I mean, things were gonna get dangerous at some point no matter what. You guys couldn’t keep me away from Peridot and J— Homeworld stuff, that wasn’t your fault.”

“They were seeking treasure in the movie,” said Garnet, laying a hand over her mouth as she thought. “As you sought our approval. But we failed to give you what you needed —“

“Oh jeez, no,” said Steven, clearly annoyed. “No, it was —“

Amethyst exclaimed, “Oh _yeah_! They just almost got crushed by a giant rock in a cave! It’s like my room in that test we gave you! Oh man, did you get squished by that thing? I mean, it wasn’t supposed to actually hit you —“ She stopped, remembering that they hadn’t told him about the failsafes.

Steven gave her a pained smile. “Yeah. That’s what it reminded me of, that test. It -- uh, it didn’t go the way you guys thought it did.” He laughed, a nervous sound, and paced around the living room. His feet padded against the floor. 

“What do you mean?” asked Pearl, tilting her head. “You did so well. You passed every obstacle --”

Steven shook his head. “You still won’t admit it.” His hands were fists. He slowly opened and closed them, again and again, staring at his palms. He opened his mouth. “I didn’t pass it. One of Garnet’s spikes came down on me. It would have broken some more of my bones, probably — um, I don’t remember if I told you guys, but we found that out at the hospital —“

“Your bones were _broken_?” Pearl yelped, thunderstruck.

“What? Seriously, _what_?” Amethyst squawked. “When?”

“Steven!” cried Garnet.

“I don’t know exactly,” said Steven, shrugging uncomfortably. He bit his lip. “I have some guesses? Like any time I actually had a bruise or a cut. I think my gem healed a lot of stuff right as it went down, but anything I actually remember hurting… I think it might have done really serious damage. There were x-rays… my bones have all these old fractures —“

“I’m so sorry,” gasped Garnet. She stopped leaning against the counter and stepped forward, raising her arms to give Steven a hug. He pulled away from her, shaking his head again. 

“No, I mean, that stuff is bad, and we should probably talk about that too sometime, but that’s not what I was… it’s not why the mug cracked.” He waved a hand and kept pacing. “Can I just finish saying what I’m trying to say?” There was an edge in his voice, a hardness that made Amethyst wince.

“Sorry,” she said quickly.

“We’ll stop interrupting,” said Pearl, but there were big tears in her eyes. Amethyst nudged her and she wiped them away, trying to smile encouragingly at Steven.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say — you guys rigged the test. All of it. So it didn’t work at all. That stupid rock chasing the guy in the movie, t just reminded me of that.”

“But you seemed so happy afterward!” Pearl protested. 

“Yeah, you were super proud!” Amethyst said, trying to figure out why Steven was so upset. Okay, so maybe he’d realized he couldn’t really mess up the test, but why did that matter? 

Garnet looked as confused as Amethyst felt. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “I saw you passing the test, and becoming more confident in your powers, like we hoped. And you did start becoming improving so much afterwards --”

Steven held up a hand. “Maybe that’s what it looked like? But not for the reason you think. I went over this with Dr. B a week or two ago, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell you guys but I think I have to, or it’s gonna keep bothering me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, sucking in deep breaths through his nose and letting them slowly out through his mouth. “It’s not just that it was rigged.”

“What do you mean?” asked Pearl.

“I sneaked out through the back of the test and made it outside into the temple. I overheard you guys --” He rubbed at his eyes. “You said you were _bad_ at helping me. You said you didn’t know what I needed. That I couldn’t lose my confidence again. And Garnet said there wasn’t anyone like me, that there’s never been ‘anyone or any _thing_ like Steven.’”

“Oh, no, Steven, we never meant for you to hear that --” Pearl cried.

“Crap! We _were_ bad at it!” Amethyst swore.

“And -- and I wanted to yell at you, all of you -- I was so _mad_ you gave me another fake test, that you didn’t trust me for _real_ \-- that you wouldn’t actually ever let me fail at something --” He was pacing harder, footsteps louder on the wood floor, breathing heavily, a pink flush starting on his cheeks. “But you know what I thought? You know what I realized? I realized that there was something I could do right.” 

He laughed a little, but there were tears starting in his eyes. “I realized that I had to take care of you. I couldn’t let you know that I knew. So I pretended -- I _lied_ \-- so you would all feel better.” 

He sank back down onto the couch, burying his face in his hands, sniffling. “And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Lying. Telling everyone I was fine. Pretending I never messed up. Because that way, no one would ever have to feel bad because of _me_.” He let out a long, shuddering sigh. “And we all know how that turned out.” He waved angrily out at the ocean.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Amethyst stared at the floor. She could see Steven marching out of the final test chamber, his little arms and shoulders stiff, his face frozen. And they’d all been so worried that they’d messed it up again, that they were never going to be able to help him be a Crystal Gem or use his powers, and they _had_ to figure it out. They _had_ to help him. What if Homeworld was coming? How could they protect Steven when it was just the three of them? They had to try and help him get stronger, they had to get him to stop beating himself up. They had to help him use Rose’s powers in case he had to protect himself. But they had no idea how to do it.

She remembered how tense she’d been, how they’d all watched him approach in silence. And he’d suddenly become so _happy_. The way he talked up each of their parts of the test! The grin on his face, the way his eyes lit up! And Amethyst remembered how proud she’d been. How proud they’d all been, folding him into a sweeping hug, grateful that they’d finally gotten it right.

Except he lied.

“We fucked up,” Amethyst mumbled.

“Amethyst! Language!” Pearl snapped, scandalized. Then her face softened. “Yes. You’re right.”

Garnet sat on the end of the couch, folding her hands together and gazing sadly at Steven. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, I didn’t want you to,” muttered Steven. “I mean… I wish I’d been honest. Maybe it wouldn’t have messed me up so much if I’d just said something. Or if you could admit I failed. Sometimes it was scary, feeling like I could never do anything wrong because I’d disappoint you.” 

It echoed in Amethyst’s mind. _You all think I’m some kind of angel, but I’m not that kid anymore!_ She swallowed.

“Steven,” said Pearl, reaching out and gently laying a hand on his shoulder. “You were a child. We should have realized you were upset.”

“We messed up, man. We didn’t know what we were doing,” said Amethyst, leaning against Steven’s other shoulder. He leaned his cheek against hers reluctantly. “Is that why you never wanna tell us when something bothers you?”

Steven snorted. “Well, there’s a lot of reasons, but I guess that’s one of them.” His voice softened. “Like I felt like I had to take care of you. Like I was only good if I could keep you guys from feeling bad.”

“Steven, our feelings are our own,” said Garnet. “They are not your responsibility. You don’t need to protect us anymore. We should have been protecting you all along. Even from ourselves.”

“You’re right. You _should_ have. You didn’t!” he burst out, jumping back to his feet. 

They fell back against the couch, staring at him. Crap. That was another one of the rules he’d asked them to follow. _Please don’t stare at me if I’m freaking out. It just makes it worse._

Amethyst tried looking out the window, but out the window she could see the ocean, and the ocean was where he’d fought the Cluster, where he’d screamed and nearly poofed them, where he’d cried in the ocean air for an hour afterwards, inconsolable --

“Why did you even want me to live with you?” he shouted, and she forgot her effort not to stare at him when she realized he was flaring pink. It glowed through his skin and hair, but his eyes weren’t diamonds, they were still Steven’s, scared and upset. “You had no idea what to do with me! You were all messed up from Mom dying! Pearl, you almost killed me more than once, Amethyst, you hated yourself so much I think I learned how to do it from you, and Garnet, you made me feel so small _all the time_ \-- I love you guys but you have to admit, my childhood was _fucked up_!”

He stood alone in the middle of the living room, chest heaving, pink hands curled into fists, tears streaming down his face. 

“We wanted you to live here because we love you, Steven,” said Pearl, her voice shaking. “We wanted to teach you about your heritage. And we wanted to protect you.”

“I -- I know you love me, that’s not --” His voice was strangled. His hands rose up, fingers twisting into his hair as he grimaced. “Sometimes things were just so **_hard_**!” His voice rang through the stillness, a burst of energy that rippled through them all and sent the coffee table shaking, but nothing cracked. He clapped a hand over his mouth, looking panicked, his shoulders heaving.

Amethyst fought back tears of her own. _Don’t make it about you_ , she told herself firmly. _You gotta help him!_ “Steven?”

“Yeah?” he whispered raggedly.

“You’re right. Things _sucked_ sometimes. And you had to go through all of that, and that sucks, too. And you’re mad because sometimes we made things worse, right?” 

He nodded, staring at her with wide eyes with his mouth clamped shut.

“This is really hard for you. That’s okay. But is it cool if I do one of your exercises with you?” she asked, getting to her feet. She hoped this was the right thing to do. Steven himself had suggested it a week or two ago, but she didn’t know if it applied now. Hopefully it did.

He laughed, and it was more like a sob. “I -- I guess. Yeah. Okay.”

She took his hands in her own, trying to remember what he’d told them. “Okay, you tell me if we’re doing it right. Deep breath in?”

He took a deep breath, following her lead, and nodded slightly through his tears. 

“And deep breath out?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, dropping his head so that it leaned against her own. His hands trembled in hers.

“That feels pretty good, right?” she said, trying to keep her voice strong. “Let’s do it again. Deep breath in….”

She felt a hand on her shoulder, then another on the other side. Garnet and Pearl stood on either side of her and Steven, all of them taking slow, calming breaths. 

Steven lifted his head up after a few minutes, his face blotchy but peach-colored again. “You guys aren’t… mad?”

“No, Steven, we aren’t angry,” said Garnet, wiping her eyes. “We wish we’d made different choices, but we’re not upset with you. You spoke a lot of truth. I know I can seem… distant, but I never wanted to be distant from you. I wanted to protect you. I’m sorry.”

“Steven, I’m sorry too,” wept Pearl. “I’m so sorry. I should never have let my pain affect you. I just… I didn’t know what to do after your mother died. It hurt so much to talk about her, and sometimes I made choices I regret because I felt so lost --” She kissed his cheek. “I love you so much, Steven. I wish I had known how to show you that.”

“I mean, I still knew,” he said, giving her a wavering smile. “And you haven’t done anything dangerous with me in years. Unless you count Steven Tag.”

“We _did_ go a little all-in on that, didn’t we?” Pearl mused, her tears slowing. She wiped them from her eyes, gazing fondly at him.

“It was fun, though,” he admitted. “It’s not like everything was bad, you know? It just feels that way sometimes. Especially now that I’m finally trying to figure things out in my own head. All the bad stuff feels so big it kinda overpowers everything else right now.”

“We want to help you,” said Garnet. “Even if it’s difficult for us to hear. You deserve to be able to share your feelings with us.”

“Even if it hurts,” said Pearl.

“I’m sorry, Ste-man,” said Amethyst, flinging her arms around his waist. It was still hard to believe sometimes how tall he’d gotten. “I know I had my issues. I’m sorry I let them be yours, too.”

He ruffled her hair with one hand, sighing. “Thanks. All of you.”

“How are you?” asked Pearl.

Amethyst lifted her head up from his chest, gazing up at him. Steven looked exhausted now, wiped out the way she was starting to get used to after moments like this. Moments. Fights. Venting. She wasn’t sure what to call it.

“Tired,” he said. His eyes were puffy. “I’m sor--” Another deep breath. “I’m not supposed to keep apologizing,” he said quietly. “At least not for everything. Dr. B was very clear on that.” He considered. “I’m sorry for yelling. But I’m not sorry for telling you guys why I was upset.”

“Good,” said Amethyst. “Apologizing too much isn’t healthy.”

“Pfft, you never apologize,” he chuckled.

“Dude! Did I not just apologize two seconds ago?” Amethyst cried, pretending to be mortally offended with a hand over her chest in her best Pearl impression.

“Okay, okay,” said Steven. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, then looked around at each of them in turn. “Are you guys… How are you guys?”

“You said something that needed to be said,” said Garnet. “I’m disappointed in myself, and I regret how our mistakes have affected you. But those feelings are for me to worry about, not you, Steven.” She brandished a double thumbs up at him.

“I’m sorry you were carrying around that secret for so long,” said Pearl. “We were trying so hard, and I wish -- I wish we’d done things differently. And I wish you hadn’t overheard us.”

“I’m fine,” said Amethyst. She suspected she might go into the temple later and scream her head off at how _badly_ they’d apparently messed Steven up with that one day, a day she used to be _proud_ of. But that was for her to deal with, and Steven to find out about never. Though what if that was part of the problem? Argh. 

She amended, “I mean, I’m super bummed that our test backfired and made you feel like you couldn’t talk to us. Of course I am. And it sucks that it hurt you bad enough that a stupid movie brings all of that back for you and makes you frea-- makes you so upset.” Her words weren’t coming out right. Why was it so hard to say exactly what she felt? 

She gave up and tapped Steven square in the chest. “So what do you want to do now?”

“I guess we could see how the movie ends,” said Steven, wiping his eyes. “Might as well. We’ve made it this far and it can’t be any worse than the CPH reboot.”

“Would you like some cocoa? I can make some for you,” said Pearl cheerfully, though her smile was a little too wide to be entirely genuine. 

“Sure,” said Steven. He shook himself free of them and flopped back on the couch, turning the TV back on. The static was gone, the picture crisp and clear.

The movie wasn’t complicated. It was loud and ridiculous and there were too many silly stunts that humans definitely couldn’t perform on their own. It was exactly the sort of thing that was her favorite, and yet she couldn’t focus on it.

She just kept glancing up at Steven out of the corner of her eye, watching him sipping his cocoa, watching him to see if he’d really said what he needed to say. But every time she did so she fought multiple versions of him, images of younger Steven telling them, again and again, not to worry about him; images of the Steven of a month ago, glowing pink, taller than Garnet, insisting shrilly he was fine, he was fine, everything was _fine_ ; images of Steven in the temple surrounded by star-shaped balloons, his smile so wide and happy and _fake_.

They’d really hurt him.

More than once.

And she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to fix things that had happened years ago, how to make up for all her flaws and Pearl’s and Garnet’s and Rose’s. All she knew was that Steven was heading into human adulthood with -- what did humans call it -- scars, scars that ran through his brain like they apparently did through his bones, and she was part of the reason why.

So she curled up against him and poked him in the side to make him laugh and fetched him more cocoa when the mug ran low. He giggled when she poked him and laughed uproariously when Crossroads Jones ran into a pit of weasels. But the rest of the time he watched the movie with little shadows under his eyes, a puffiness that hadn’t been there earlier this morning. 

The movie ended, credits rolling to bombastic music as bloopers played. 

“That was… a movie,” said Garnet.

“It was incredibly historically inaccurate,” said Pearl. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“It’s an action movie, P, they’re not supposed to be like real history,” said Amethyst.

“It was all right,” said Steven. “Even with… you know.” He dropped his gaze. “Thanks for listening, guys.”

“How are you feeling these days? Overall?” asked Amethyst.

She wondered what he would say. _Fine! Things are so much better! I’ll be back to normal in no time!_ She ached, thinking of him squashing everything down again, pretending for their sake and his own. 

Steven shrugged, quirking his mouth to one side as he thought about his answer. “Some days are pretty good,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like my old self again. But some days are still so hard I -- I get scared it’s going to be like that day last month. Like I’m gonna explode again into something I can’t control.” He shivered. “But most days are like… this. With parts that suck. And parts that are pretty okay. I dunno.”

“You know what I think?” asked Amethyst.

“What?”

“You just _told_ us things are less than good. You yelled at us about something we screwed up, and yeah, it sucked to hear it, but we got it out in the open. And you’re not pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t,” she said.

Pearl and Garnet smiled at him. He didn’t return the gesture, looking confused. “So?”

“I dunno, man. To me, that seems like you’re getting better, even when it doesn’t always look like it. And hopefully… we’re getting a little bit better at helping you.”

Steven raised his eyebrows, then smiled slightly. “Huh,” he said. “I guess that’s not so bad.”

“We love you so much, Steven.”

“All of us.”

“And don’t you forget it,” said Amethyst, hugging him tightly. 

He sighed contentedly, hugging her back. “Love you guys.”

She sank against him in relief. Yeah. Things were getting a little better, all the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone's trying really, really hard in this story. There are signs that they still don't get everything just right, that there are still hurdles in the way of open communication. The Gems aren't perfect. Neither is Steven. This is something that's really difficult for all of them and it's going to be messy. Hoping to do some more conversations like this down the line.
> 
> Apparently Indiana is the Crossroads State, ergo, in Steven's Universe the movies are Crossroads Jones adventures.


End file.
